Colleges scope out students' Web pages

Grant Welker

Friday

Jan 23, 2009 at 12:01 AMJan 23, 2009 at 10:14 PM

Colleges are increasingly using Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, just like so many students applying for admission, but the schools often use them for different reasons — to check those students’ backgrounds and reach out to them with video lectures.

Colleges are increasingly using Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, just like so many students applying for admission, but the schools often use them for different reasons — to check those students’ backgrounds and reach out to them with video lectures.

Admissions offices are increasingly using social media sites to find out more about applicants for scholarships or exclusive programs, according to a national University of Massachusetts Dartmouth study released Thursday.

The use of such online networking sites rose by one quarter from the previous study in 2007, which included 453 colleges, the study said. More than half of admissions offices said social media is “very important” to admissions strategies.

In about one year’s time, colleges have become more familiar with sites like Facebook and MySpace, and are now using YouTube to give prospective students an idea of what their lectures are like or give tours of campus and dorms. About 40 percent of college admissions offices have a blog, and of the remainder, another 40 percent plan to start one.

The increasing use shows admissions departments’ “recognition of the increasing importance of social media in today’s world,” the report following the study said. “We found that colleges and universities are out in front,” said Nora Ganim Barnes, chancellor professor of UMass Dartmouth’s Center for Marketing Research.

But even many colleges are not using Web technology as well as they could, she said. Only half of colleges said people could subscribe by e-mail or RSS feed to their Web sites, for example, and 80 percent said their blogs were successful even though about 30 percent didn’t allow readers to comment, Barnes said.

In the study, 23 percent of colleges said they use search engines to research potential students, and 17 percent use sites like Facebook or MySpace. But admissions offices at Bristol Community College and UMass Dartmouth are not among them.

“Probably because we’re more about access” than exclusivity, said David Tracy, BCC’s associate vice president for enrollment services. Tracy added that he could “kind of see the relevance” for selective colleges to check on what prospective students might be like outside of their application.

“Basically, we do not examine people’s social networking sites,” said John Hoey, UMass Dartmouth’s spokesman. “The things we really care about are school records and academic records and activities.”

Both schools are using the Internet to reach out to potential students in other ways though, they said. BCC has its own Facebook page, and UMass Dartmouth is working on one. UMass Dartmouth also has its own admissions blog and online video lectures from professors. “We understand it’s important to connect with potential students where they are, online.”

BCC’s new strategic plan included research of what students and faculty felt needed to be improved, and one was wanting to feel a better connection to one another, said Sally Cameron, who co-chaired the strategic planning committee. Four-fifths of current students said they wanted to be contacted by the college through Facebook, she said.

“Social networking sites allow us to communicate with people that are interested in us,” Cameron said.

It is clear, the study said, that “online behavior can have important consequences for young people and that social networking sites can, and will, be utilized by others to make decisions about them.” But colleges don’t see checking up on prospective students as an invasion of privacy.

“They’re protecting themselves,” Barnes said. “No school wants to announce the winner of a prestigious scholarship only to have compromising pictures be discovered on the Internet the next day,” the study said.

Besides, Barnes added, prospective college students can turn their personal Facebook or MySpace pages into ways to sell themselves to admissions offices. “Use it to your advantage,” she said.

The study also found that 54 percent of colleges monitor what’s being said about them online, a figure that Barnes said should be far higher. “Everyone should be doing that.” In addition, private schools were far more likely than public schools — 72 percent compared to 28 — to have blogs, and colleges with enrollments under 2,000 were more likely than larger schools to use them.

E-mail Grant Welker at gwelker@heraldnews.com.

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